British Army, Royal Marines lose £18,454 worth of ammunition and AK-47 rifle in thefts

The British Army and Royal Marines have had 87,000 rounds of ammunition worth £18,454 and an AK-47 rifle stolen from them.

Over 87,000 rounds of live 5.56mm ammunition was stolen from the British Army and Royal Marines in addition to smaller amounts of other munitions, an AK-47 and other rifle types.

It is believed that the theft occurred at a British Army training camp in the Middle East, specifically Jordan.

A theft of ammunition was reported last year while 1,700 British troops were taking part in Exercise Shamal Storm, a large scale exercise in Jordan.

Troops from the Vanguard Enabling Group (VE Gp) were in Jordan for the annual exercise. Lieutenant Colonel Jo Chestnutt from the Royal Logistic Corps was the Commanding Officer of the VE Gp and he explained the premise of the Exercise last year:

“It’s is all about testing and validating our ability to get troops and equipment anywhere in the world, quickly and safely. Our aim is to set the conditions for the main force, and provide logistic support to them at a moment’s notice.”

It should be noted an L85A2 rifle and a very small amount of ammunition were recovered however.

Displayed below are figures courtesy of the MoD.

An MoD spokesperson said:

“The Army takes the security of ammunition very seriously and has robust procedures to prevent losses and thefts. All thefts are rigorously investigated with civilian police forces.”

The price for items of stores stolen or lost is always higher than the actual price to replace. The price given will be to replace a single individual item it wont take into account bulk buying . AS MOD bulk buys the actual price paid by MOD is considerably less.